For the most part, the Jews had come to South Africa from Lithuania at the turn of the century. They had been popular at first, but by the mid-1930`s this was no longer the case. The Jews had become heavily urbanized. In Johannesburg, they constituted 17 per cent of the population and were sufficiently conspicuous so that the metropolis was sometimes referred to, not as Jo burg, but as Jewburg. They aroused envy and some rancor during the years of depression because they controlled a large part of the business of Johannesburg and other cities. Anti-Semitism was fed by the …
Tag: Rivonia Trial
20 May 1983 – Remembering The Church Street Bomb, Pretoria
The Church Street attack on May 20, 1983 killed 19 and injured more than 200 people when a car with 40kg of explosives was detonated outside the SAAF headquarters. Two MK cadres, who were in the car at the time, were also killed because the bomb exploded two minutes early. A huge pall of smoke rose hundreds of feet into the air as debris and bodies were strewn around the scene of the explosion. It exploded at the height of the city’s rush-hour as hundreds of people were leaving work for the weekend. Glass and metal were catapulted into the …
Jews And Communism In South Africa – Part 2
This book appears to have been written for a Jewish readership. Dr Shimoni was born in South Africa to parents from Lithuania, but settled in Israel where he lectured at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and where he gained post-graduate degrees in Jewish history. While bitterly contemptuous of South Africa under the apartheid system, Dr Shimoni in effect identifies with the concept of geographically based ethnic groupings that was the basis of the South African system. This kind of irony, not to say hypocrisy, is typical of Jews opposed to racism in Europe, the US or South Africa. Two extended …
